An Uber Disaster: How the Worlds Largest Taxi Firm Pays Hackers to Hide Ransomware Attack

This week in the news it has emerged that taxi extraordinaire, Uber, had suffered a huge ransomware attack in October 2017 which exposed data belonging to 57 million of its customers and drivers. Not only did Uber fail to disclose the hack but they did a good job of covering it up too. Consequently, sacking their CEO Travis Kalanick.

Rumour has it, the company paid the hackers a $100,000 ransom to delete the stolen data and a deal which included not exposing the scandal to the media. The hack included names, phone numbers and email addresses of Uber users worldwide and 7 million drivers worldwide.

The hack itself was pretty straightforward. Hackers gained access to a public Github code repository used by Uber engineers were able to collect private login credentials to an Amazon cloud computer server, from which the hackers stole a list of rider and driver data. They then extorted Uber for the $100,000 fee.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a large company affected by ransomware attackers. But it’s important to remember small to medium size businesses are also at high risk. In fact, some may say SMB’s are more appealing to hackers because their lack of cyber security makes it a lot easier for hackers to do the dirty.

Don’t let it be you.

Now is the time to ask yourself what precautions you are taking when it comes to cyber security. If the answer to this question is somewhere between ‘none’ and ‘very little’ then it’s time to take it more seriously.